ME: I see you're still the most beautiful girl in the world.

LINDA: Mmmm.

ME: Is it exciting to have your picture all over Fun City, your name on every trendy tongue? Is it true you're on the cover of Esquire, with a yummy five-page spread in Playboy? How about the Warner Bros. record? Not to mention I hear you're writing books? Does all this get you off?

LINDA: Yeah. I love it. And it gets better all the time.

ME: How do you get along with all these celebrities I hear you're cavorting around with?

LINDA: It's hard to say. We're not into the society scene. I've met a lot out in California. They're really just nice people. They've been very nice to us.

ME: All of them? Do you feel they turn on to you?

LINDA: Yeah, actually. Nobody's said low things to me, or been against me at all. We meet fantastic people at parties and stuff, and it's all been... Oh, fantastic! (one more glorious smile.)

ME: Has it all taken over your personal life? It's beautiful to see you sitting here in jeans; if anything you're more relaxed and open than the last time I talked to you. How come you never had any superstar ego problems, anyway?

LINDA: I was never a plastic person. This all happened so fast, but I haven't really changed. I still relate to people as people. Sure, I've made a lot of new friends, but it hasn't taken over my life. It's opened it up, it's taught me a lot, we travel all over the country.

ME: So what are you doing now?

LINDA: We just finished Deep Throat Part II, but it won't be out for a while. It's not edited yet, so I can't say too much about it. It's pretty funny, though.

ME: Have you taken any acting lessons or, say, comedienne lessons? I keep telling people that you're the Woodstock Nation's Mae West.

LINDA: No, I haven't picked up a lot from directors. Chuck gives me good advice with lines and stuff. The script for this last one is fabulous.

ME: Now listen, I've seen some new pictures of you, baby, and I KNOW you went to chest-developing school. You must have put on two or three inches, and may I say they're dynamite, if that's the word.

LINDA: Oh no, they're EXERCISES!

ME: Impossible.

LINDA: That's what everybody says, impossible. But your mind has a lot to do with your body; that's always been our philosophy. I have a whole set of exercises I'm really into (she displays one or two of the exercises and sure enough the flesh in question quivers about healthily). You have to give your full attention into developing the right muscles. Do them all the time and they make things...  much better.

ME: One more mellow how-to manual for you to write in your declining years, Sweetness. Do you really have any idea how the very-physical Linda Lovelace has shaken up a hell of a lot of females in this country?

LINDA: In what way?

ME: It goes very deep. For example, a lot of women's liberation types see you as exploited, just as a male fantasy dream girl. That being able to be balled in your throat makes you just the most esoteric love slave around...

LINDA: But I'm so free! Can't you see I love it? I really do come every time somebody's in my throat... Yeah! How could I be exploited when I was the one out looking for it?

ME: They say the story is just one long male fantasy, you know, the sexually insatiable girl who makes it her whole life to please men...

LINDA: I was pleasing ME.

CHUCK: Doesn't every girl want to be a male dream girl? Why does she wear make-up and buy new clothes all the time?

ME: I always did sense a certain envious undercurrent, like when Blair Sabol wrote in the Village Voice about a group of feminists discussing you at some consciousness-raising group and she said, "Suddenly talking about Deep Throat we realized the real problem: NO one is getting laid anymore."

LINDA: I don't really understand women's lib--what do they want to be liberated FROM? I mean, I'm liberated! I'm not the typical American woman, who's put herself in a certain category, into a situation she feels she has to be liberated FROM. I've never been there. I am what I am. I always will be. Look, I love what I'm doing. I thought people would see me and that would make them freer. They could enjoy whatever made them happy. It didn't have to be throat-jobbing. I just want everybody to have as good a time as possible, without any hang-ups.

ME: Oh, you must realize the effect you have on people... some of it. Tell me about that "new journalist" who did one interview with you and followed you all the way to Miami. He kept saying he had to have "carnal knowledge" of you.

LINDA: I'm always pretty naive. He seemed like a regular guy. But he did say something to you in Miami, didn't he, Chuck?

CHUCK: Oh yeah, he sure would've liked to ball you. He came all the way down to Florida, thinking he was a big-time magazine writer who's gonna sweep Linda right off her feet. When he found out it didn't work, he sort of wrote the article around his particular dreams. It was a strange article.

LINDA: It made him feel good, though!

ME: He seemed to be saying that if only you hadn't been around, Chuck, he could have dragged Linda into the bushes. Is that how most writers usually respond?

CHUCK: (laughs) They come in two entirely separate types. The first type, the moment they're with Linda Lovelace they recoil. They suddenly find themselves faced with the best, the connoisseur of all lovemaking today. They can't bear being compared with a person like that. So they purposely stay away from any sex talk, or any situation that could arise (more laughter). The other type tries to come on right away. Here's Linda Lovelace and here's ME! We've run into several guys like that. They feel that because they're either reporters or publishers or movie-makers, this should mean something. But this means nothing to Linda. She couldn't care less. A meeting or two and the guy finds out his little ploys won't work. He stops banging his head against the wall. They stop giving her the personal cards and the big hints and settle down to business when they see that's all we’re interested in.

ME: How about those lowdown articles in that sex newspapers and some of those weirdo photos?

LINDA: They weren't me! You notice you never saw the face too clearly.

CHUCK: They're all bullshit! And anyone who knew her, knew that right away.

ME: Do you feel it's all politics?

CHUCK: Well, sure. They wanted her to star in their film that just opened. She refused to do it, and that alienated them right away. Then, when they found out she was back in New York, they figured something was in the works, so they began writing this bunch of lies. So people would be turned off to Deep Throat and go see their movie instead. But it never worked!

ME: What did you think of their picture?

CHUCK: I'll never see it. They'll never get a penny of my dollar! But we've heard from several people--actors that were in it and legitimate producers--that it's junk. Just another skin flick. The only reason it got any action at all is that they super-advertise it in their newspaper. Week after week, a big blast at Linda, and big ads for their film! I think if they used the same kind of publicity for two mice balling, it'd get about the same audience.

ME: What about that interview you did with them when you went down on their editor, Linda?

LINDA: That was another of their fantasies, but I went along with it. I thought they were friends. Deep Throat had just opened and they really wrote nice things about it. I was just starting out and I was grateful. You can bet I'll never do it again! It was humiliating. I never realized that the interview was just a pretext to signing me up for their stupid movie. Then when I said no, they kept calling us in Miami.

CHUCK: That's the whole basis of their digging at her now, and trying to degrade her with lies. They wanted her bad. There's a big difference between what happens while you're climbing to the top... and what you don't do, when you get up there. Now she doesn't have to go to anyone.

ME: No, they all come to you. How do you feel about those nice professors and psychoanalysts and film critics who defended the film at the obscenity trial?

LINDA: That didn't really involve us personally. But they were right about the film. I always thought it would open people's eyes to how sex should really be fun and you can do whatever makes you happy, as long as nobody else was hurt.

ME: Do you think that's how Judge Tyler reacted?

LINDA: (laughs) Yeah, he's pretty funny! I'll tell you how he reacted. We're still waiting for him to come back! (This was before the decision was handed down.) He's still sitting there with the movie, having a grand old time! Do you remember that picture in Newsweek where he's got this big grin on his face, a big smirk like he's saying, "Mmmm!! I have to take some time to consider all the aspects of this one..." That picture says it all, the whole trial.

ME: Different strokes for different folks... even inside closets, I s'pose! He did say, though, that the whole trial had been an education for him, remember? When one of the witnesses pointed out to him how you proved that there was much more to sex than just the missionary position?

LINDA: There's hope! That's a beginning! (laughs)

ME: As you say, the mind controls the body. Speaking of which, the boys at the office want to know which part of your mind makes your various orifices--like rectum and vagina--so very... pliable.

CHUCK: Now, take Linda's vagina. She can expand it to where you can put your whole fist in, or tighten it to where it's hard to fit in your little finger.

ME: Wow! How did you learn that?

LINDA: That's my little secret. But maybe we'll patent it! (wild laughter all about)

CHUCK: No, really, we've been approached by several people who want to do full books about the process of learning this. Linda is a living example of its success, proving it can be done. There's no difference between her body and your own, in terms of potential. I taught her a few tricks. Not tricks, really, just exercises for muscle control. You know, there are people in the Orient who can stop their heartbeat. There's no reason why any muscle that works can't be made to do what you want it to do. I'd like to do a book about this.

ME: It would really jazz up the bestseller lists. Listen, a bit of ancient history. Didn't you once tell me you used to considered giving head unclean and taboo, unnatural, even?

LINDA: Oh, yeah, well, I was at one time very, very naive. I'd never consider doing that. I was one of those girls who would just lie there. That was the full extent of my sexual activity! Then I met Chuck, and found out otherwise.

ME: Via his fabulous Oriental recipes. He's the first person I've ever heard about who translates the experience, although other guys in the service used to talk about all the exquisite specialities over there.

CHUCK: What else? All the guys there learn about it, but they don't have any idea how to teach it. It's like tasting a piece of cake and really digging it. I dug it too, but I had to know how it was made. So I went right into it. You could say totally. Went around talking to a lot of people. The girl who performed it the best didn't have any details. And she couldn't explain them to me, anyway, as she didn't speak that much English. So it took a lot of (smiles) investigation. Seriously, it's like acupuncture or anything else. You've got to get right to the source before you can explain it to anyone. And now I can tell you how to do it, but if you go and try it right away, it won't work. You've got to know the steps, what motivates what in order to open yourself  up three or four inches in diameter. You've got to know exactly what system to practice.

ME: I can well imagine lots of people gagging their brains out around the country.

LINDA: (smiling) Maybe you should open a school, Chuck...

CHUCK: Mmmm, might wear me out a bit. Better some kind of book. Layman's language, very detailed schematic sketches, so they could understand exactly what it is they're doing. It has a lot to do with preparation of the body, body positioning and so forth. It takes a lot of meditation, like true yoga, to enable you to control involuntary muscles. And you've got to be absolutely faithful in practicing. Like sword-swallowers. Which may be why there are very few of them around anymore.

ME: Say, before this dynamite Ten Trippy Steps to Throat Screwing hits the publishing biz, do you have any kind words for the legion of ladies out there, Lovelace fans all? Just a few teeny hints about getting it on?

CHUCK: Well, kiddies,  I live in New York, Los Angeles and Miami. If you can catch me, I'll teach you all I know! No, seriously, what I want to say is, Don't try it until you learn a whole lot about it. Depending on size, you could really hurt yourself, tear the hell out of your larynx. So that it wouldn't heal, and wouldn't work like it's supposed to. Meaning, the first time you swallow a piece of toast the wrong way, you won't cough it up, which is your natural involuntary muscle reaction. You could choke to death, it's that serious. A piece of pork-chop bone, anything. It's a self-defense mechanism your body has, this coughing, and that's the muscle you have to control. Or else the moment someone touched the back of Linda's throat, she'd gag and cough, maybe spoil the shot. If you don't do it the right way, just use brute force, you won't cough anymore. That's why I go around saying that not everybody should turn on to throat-boffing, although it's the best. I can't be responsible for people getting hurt, maybe.

ME: You've got to get your head together, then, in more ways than one. Maybe you could make a film with Linda, a real how-to...

CHUCK: Yeah, possibly. Didn't one of those "expert" witnesses say the movie was real good for sex education? (laughs)

ME: Are you all signed up for 80 new Daughter of Deep Throat epics?

CHUCK: No, the greatest thing is we're free agents at last! We got out of our contract. That is, it finally came to an end. We got very little money out of Deep Throat, and you know the fortune it's made, the millions. We've got some new offers now that are so fantastic. Sometimes you don't even know how to imagine that kind of money. We get these offers every day! One guy talked about giving us $100,000 to make any kind of flick we wanted to. No strings! And then, our old company, could be that they'll make the right offer now that Linda's so famous. But it's like a dream. There's not a day that somebody doesn't want to write a book or a feature article on her, take pictures, make records, do her life story behind Deep Throat. It's really true that when you've got the best the world will not leave you alone.